Pure AV provides NHS Trust with full lecture hall refit

Pure AV has completed a lecture hall upgrade as part of on-going upgrades to the facilities at the Health Academy based at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The lecture hall accommodates up to 130 in traditional tiered seating style, and its use for mandatory training, visiting lectures and events results in over 500 people a week passing through the venue.

Before the refurbishment, students faced uncomfortable seating and poor audio and image clarity as the old system struggled to cope with sometimes complex medical imagery and increased usage of high definition content.

To improve audio quality, Pure AV introduced new radio mics and completed an acoustic survey of the room to ensure the optimisation of speaker placement and audio levels. The introduction of an Extron DMP 128 DSP provides the on-site AV team with additional audio control; enabling program and microphone audio to be distributed separately and effectively, for an enhanced listening experience.

At the front of the lecture hall, the three audience facing displays create a flexible canvas for content delivery. A large central projection screen provides the core presentation space and two 65in Philips signage screens positioned either side offer an area for supporting content, branding or for the integration of live content such as twitter walls. The screens also provide the Trust with an opportunity to promote the branding of visiting companies alongside their presentation content.

Control for the presenter is kept straightforward with a 7in Extron touch panel designed using Health Academy assets and programmed by Pure AV to offer a simple user interface. The addition of a 43in screen facing the lectern as a confidence monitor further enhances the presenter experience.

An additional 7in Extron control panel is situated in the former projection booth at the rear of the hall and can be operated by the on-site technicians to support more technically complex presentations or events. The integration of an Extron CrossPoint 86 4K matrix provides the team with the ability to display any source content out to any of the displays enabling them to distribute and manage content as required.

The projector previously housed in the control room is now ceiling mounted within the lecture hall. The Epson Laser EB-L1300U floods the 4.5m projection screen with full HD images and 8,000 lumens of colour.

The system installed by Pure AV also offers lecture capture and live streaming and the team at the Health Academy expect growing demand for both as they explore new ways to manage mandatory training modules, accommodate high profile guest speakers and support collaboration with other sites and institutions.

Dorcas Walker, education centre manager, Lancashire Teaching Hospital commented: “We’ve had excellent feedback. The equipment we have performs so much better than before, the audiovisual equipment is easy to use, and the room is very user-friendly. Now, we look forward to hosting events and feel confident that we have a high-quality space to sell, especially to external users, which is good for the Trust.”